Terrault Contemporary

Address: 1515 Guilford Ave., Baltimore, MD 21202
Contact: Carlyn Thomas
Email: info@terraultcontemporary.com
Website: www.terraultcontemporary.com
Open Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12pm- 5pm

How is the project operated?
Artist-Run.

How long has it been in existence?
5 months.

What was your motivation?
Our motivation for Terrault Contemporary was to foster an environment that facilitates multi-disciplinary, innovative exhibitions and programming that highlights emerging and mid-career artists based in Baltimore. We also wanted to provide an accessible space providing artists with opportunities to host community workshops and events of all kinds.

Number of organizers/responsible persons of the project.
There are two of us, Brooks Kossover, the Founder/Owner, and Carlyn Thomas, serving as the Director. We also have a few dedicated volunteers and interns that help us significantly.

How are programs funded?
Most of our programs do not require much funding, but our general operating expenses for programs, events and exhibitions are funded by a mixture of sales of artwork or zines and cassettes, donations and admission fees that we collect during events, and few individual donors who support our mission. We are also funding from our own pockets, too.

Who is responsible for the programming?
The Director mostly, but being only a staff of two, we both have input on programming.

Number and average duration of exhibitions/events per year.
We have not yet been open for a year, but since we opened our doors in early August, we have had six successful exhibitions, each lasting for a month. Our goal for 2015 is to show two exhibitions per month. We also host roughly five one-night-only events and performances in our space each month.

What kind of events are usually organized?
We host a myriad of events ranging from video screenings, 16mm projections, performance art salon series, lectures, painting classes, zine release parties, readings, knitting/craft circles, and we are currently in the midst of rehearsals for our first immersive play of a modern adaptation of The Symposium by Plato, that will debut February 7th.

How is your programming determined?
We accept proposals for events as well as personally seeking out artists and events that we think would be a good fit for Terrault’s dynamic programming and exhibitions calendar.

Currently, we are putting together a Program Advisory Committee of various local successful individuals in the field that would meet regularly to give us feedback in regards to our selection process.

Do you accept proposals/submissions?
Yes, we have a proposal form on our website. Our proposal process for programming is more casual that our submission process for exhibitions, and we typically just receive inquiry emails about an idea and proceed with selection and scheduling from there.

What is your artistic/curatorial approach?
To curate critically engaging, dynamic, contemporary art that shows emerging practices and excellence of craft in Baltimore artists.

What’s working? What’s not working?
We are very happy with the level of publicity and attendance we have been receiving for openings and events. It seems our efforts in advertising and partnering with local organizations are bringing in a sizeable and engaged crowd. We are one of six arts venues that participate in a local, heavily promoted, monthly art walk on the first Friday of every month, called Alloverstreet. We have had positive reviews in many Baltimore Arts publications, bringing in great foot traffic. There has also been a steady influx of proposals for the gallery and our auxiliary performance space, which reflects that people are hearing about us and expressing interest in wanting to show with us.

Sales in artwork, as well as our local zine and cassette department, are low at the moment. We believe it is potentially due to the lack of a truly diverse audience demographic, which we are trying to expand. Due to our close proximity to MICA and our location in the CopyCat warehouse, which is a living space for students, we have become popular among a younger audience, and therefore, we are not getting a lot of attention from those who are in the market for purchasing artwork. We are fortunate to have had some visitors from the New York Times, executives from large Baltimore cultural institutions like the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art and Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, however, we’ve noticed a generational gap in our audience that we are working to diversify.

What kind of role do you hope to play in your local art scene or community?
We aim to be a place that the Baltimore community comes to in order to see the latest up-and-coming art in the Baltimore arts scene. We also hope to be known as a safe space for new ideas and inclusive programming that people can approach with proposals of all kinds. We are beginning to work on a few youth involved community projects and we soon hope to be seen as a space that provides creative and professional mentorship.

What idea are you most excited about for the future?
Being such a young space, we know we have a lot of room for growth and improvement, and for that reason we could not be more excited to see what the future brings us! We are thrilled to be announcing the partnership with local artist, musician, and icon, TT the Artist, who will be working with us by hosting workshops in music and video production for youth as well as a community youth mural program.

Images courtesy of Terrault Contemporary.